Instructor Spotlight

The University of Texas of the Permian Basin Advanced Placement Summer Institute Instructors

Pre-AP Professional Development in English; Brook Bullock

Brook Bullock has taught in Oklahoma for over 20 years and presently teaches AP Language at Putnam City North High School in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. From 2001 until 2011, he taught at urban Del City High School where, in addition to starting the AP English Language program, Mr. Bullock was the Yearbook and Newspaper sponsor and taught Journalism and English III. Previously, he taught on level and Pre-AP English I and II at rural Blackwell High School where he was a founding member of the school’s AP English Vertical Team. Brook is a Reader for the AP Language Exam, has scored entries for National Board Certification, and has been a College Board consultant since 1997. He has presented at numerous workshops, conferences, and Summer Institutes in the Southwest, Midwestern, Southern, and Western Regions of the College Board, including multiple invitations to the College Board’s AP National Conference.

Pre-AP Professional Development in Biology; Marshall Welch

Marshall Welch has been a high school science educator for 26 years with the last 17 of those at Alpena High School in northwest Arkansas. He works also as a part time faculty member at North Arkansas College where he is a physical science, astronomy, and biology instructor. While at Alpena, he has taught AP Biology for 9 years. He has instructed the Pre-AP Biology classes for 17 years. He adheres to a curriculum framework driven instruction philosophy that has resulted in recent recognition of his students as a top 20 high school in his state for most improved end of course biology exam performance over a period from 2007-2013 by the Office of Educational Performance (OEP) at the University of Arkansas. Marshall initiated a competitive high school science research program that has witnessed 1,377 regional, state, and international science fair awards won by students. He has had the privilege of mentoring 24 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair finalists. The most memorable, his son Will, and daughter Katie earned finalist honors and special recognition by the Organization of American States in the 2014 Intel ISEF in Los Angeles, California. He has also collaborated with the Alpena FFA chapter to produce over 95 National FFA Agro Science Fair Finalists. Fifteen of those were national award winners earning 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place honors. The most memorable of these are the 2nd and two 3rd place awards won by his daughter Katie and a 2nd place award won by his son Will among the 5 National Champion projects won by other students that he mentored.

Marshall was selected among a small group of high school science educators to be trained as a College Board Professional Development Consultant in April 2013. He was trained in Chicago in April and has presented professional development events for the New York Stem Initiative, Texas Gear Up, Oklahoma Department of Education, AP New Mexico, and the Los Angeles Unified School District along with local events in Arkansas. He finds the move to a framework driven and inquiry-based curriculum in the AP sciences most exciting and enjoys helping teachers transition to this new direction of AP Science education.

Pre-AP Professional Development in Mathematics; Donna Speer

Mrs. Speer graduated from Mid-America Nazarene University with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and from University of Texas at Dallas with a master’s degree. Donna is currently teaching Pre AP Pre Calculus and AP Statistics at Northwest High School in Justin, Tx. She taught 10 years in the El Paso ISD before moving to the Dallas/Ft Worth area. Over the past 30 years she has taught a variety of math courses from 7th grade math to AP Calculus and Statistics to students from varied backgrounds. She has been a certified consultant for the College Board for the last 10 years and a reader for the AP Statistics exam for 7 years. She enjoys her work with the College Board and the opportunity to work with other teachers to improve math education.

AP English Language; Elizabeth Villarreal

Elizabeth Villarreal has taught English for 22 years. For the past ten years, she has served as an endorsed College Board consultant and as an Educational Testing Service Reader for the AP English Language and Composition Exam. She has presented at workshops and Pre-AP/AP Summer Institutes in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Elizabeth also serves as an AP English Language and Composition Saturday Student Study Session presenter and teacher mentor for The National Math and Science Initiative. In addition, she has been a presenter at the AP Annual Conference and at the AP Colloquium for Equity and Excellence. She is also an SAT Reader, Pearson essay scorer for the state exam, and a member of the NCTE. Elizabeth has also served on the Texas Education Agency End –of- Course Advisory Committees and STAAR™ Item Review Committees for reading and writing.

AP Physics I: Algebra Based; Larry Browning

Larry Browning has been teaching physics at South Dakota State University (SDSU) since 1990 and before that at Marquette University since 1983. His BS is in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University after which he earned a M.S. and Ph.D. from Purdue University in Physics. Over the years he has been instrumental in developing over 18 Eisenhower/NCLB professional development workshops for middle and high school teachers, has been a part of the American Association of Physics Teachers’ Rural Physics Teaching Resource Agents (Rural-PTRA), as well as serving as an AP Consultant in Physics. He also teaches the physics portion of the 7-12 Science Methods course at SDSU. When he is not discussing pressure and leverage with T-Rexes near Faith, SD, he enjoys putting on science demonstration programs across South Dakota often with Matt Miller of the Chemistry Department.

AP U.S. History; Jackie McHargue

Jackie McHarguehas both aBachelor and Master of Arts in History from the University of Texas at Arlington. She has additional graduate hours in gifted education from Texas Women’s University. Ms. McHargue taught United States history for twenty-nine years (1976-2005) at Duncanville (Texas) High School of which 14 years were devoted to teaching Advanced Placement United States History. She also taught Dual Credit American History for Mountain View Community College. She has twenty-six years of experience writing curriculum and assessments for honors and Advanced Placement United States History courses. She substituted for 7 years in the McKinney (Texas) Independent School District’s three high schools, mostly in PreAP and AP level courses. As a College Board lead consultant for seventeen years, she has conducted 35 AP United States History Summer Institutes and numerous one and two day workshops; most recently, at the College Board’s New England Region’s Instructional Strategies Conference in November of 2013. Jackie was chosen as one of the consultants to receive special training to lead workshops on the College Board’s new emphasis on the historical thinking skills that will be used on the redesigned exam beginning in 2015. That training was August 4-6, 2013. A Reader of the AP US History Exam for six years, she has also been a scorer for the SAT and various state tests for eight years and continuing. Jackie was awarded the Otis Lock Award for Excellence in Teaching-Secondary-by the East Texas Historical Association, the Champions for Children award by her district, and was selected the Teacher of the Year by the Daughters of Colonial Wars of Ft. Worth, Texas in 2000. A new endeavor that she enjoys is acting as a docent and an education consultant for the Situation Room projects at the George Bush Museum and Library at Southern Methodist University.